Almost immediately after the events chronicled in the preceding chapter I sailed for my second tour through the United States. I was delighted to find a thoroughly alive and progressive suffrage movement, where before had existed with most people only an academic theory in favour of equal political rights between men and women. My first meeting, held in Brooklyn, was advertised by sandwich women walking through the principal streets of the city, quite like our militant suffragists at home. Street meetings, I found, were now daily occurrences in New York. The Women's Political Union had adopted an election policy, and throughout the country as far west as I travelled, I found women awakened to the necessity of political action instead of mere discussion of suffrage.

My second visit to America, like my first one, is clouded in my memory with sorrow. Very soon after my return to England a beloved sister, Mrs. Mary Clarke died. My sister, who was a most ardent suffragist and a valued worker in the Women's Social and Political Union, was one of the women who was shockingly maltreated in Parliament Square on Black Friday. She was also one of the women who, a few days later, registered their protest against the Government by throwing a stone through the window of an official residence. For this act she was sent to Holloway prison for a term of one month. Released on December 21st, it was plain to those who knew her best that her health had suffered seriously from the dreadful experience of Black Friday and the after experience of prison. She died suddenly on Christmas day, to the profound sorrow of all her associates. Hers was not the only life that was sacrificed as a result of that day. Other deaths occurred, mostly from hearts weakened by overstrain. Miss Henria Williams died on January 2nd, 1911, from heart failure. Miss Cecelia Wolseley Haig was another victim. Ill treatment on Black Friday resulted in her case in a painful illness which ended, after a year of intense suffering, in her death on December 21st, 1911.

RIOT SCENES ON BLACK FRIDAY

November, 1910

It is not possible to publish a full list of all the women who have died or have been injured for life in the course of the suffrage agitation in England. In many cases the details have never been made public, and I do not feel at liberty to record them here. A very celebrated case, which is public property, is that of Lady Constance Lytton, sister of the Earl of Lytton, who acted as chairman of the Conciliation Committee. Lady Constance had twice in 1909 gone to prison as a result of suffrage activities, and on both occasions had been given special privileges on account of her rank and family influence. In spite of her protests and her earnest pleadings to be accorded the same treatment as other suffrage prisoners, the snobbish and cowardly authorities insisted in retaining Lady Constance in the hospital cells and discharging her before the expiration of her sentence. This was done on a plea of her ill health, and it was true that she suffered from a valvular disease of the heart.

Smarting under the sense of the injustice done her comrades in this discrimination, Lady Constance Lytton did one of the most heroic deeds to be recorded in the history of the suffrage movement. She cut off her beautiful hair and otherwise disguised herself, put on cheap and ugly clothing, and as "Jane Warton" took part in a demonstration at Newcastle, again suffering arrest and imprisonment. This time the authorities treated her as an ordinary prisoner. Without testing her heart or otherwise giving her an adequate medical examination, they subjected her to the horrors of forcible feeding. Owing to her fragile constitution she suffered frightful nausea each time, and when on one occasion the doctor's clothing was soiled, he struck her contemptuously on the cheek. This treatment was continued until the identity of the prisoner suddenly became known. She was, of course, immediately released, but she never recovered from the experience, and is now a hopeless invalid.[2]

I want to say right here, that those well-meaning friends on the outside who say that we have suffered these horrors of prison, of hunger strikes and forcible feeding, because we desired to martyrise ourselves for the cause, are absolutely and entirely mistaken. We never went to prison in order to be martyrs. We went there in order that we might obtain the rights of citizenship. We were willing to break laws that we might force men to give us the right to make laws. That is the way men have earned their citizenship. Truly says Mazzini that the way to reform has always led through prison.

The result of the general election, which took place in January, 1911, was that the Liberal Party was again returned to power. Parliament met on January 31st, but the session formally opened on February 6th with the reading of the King's speech. The programme for the session included the Lords' veto measure, Home Rule, payment for members of Parliament, and the abolishment of plural voting. Invalid insurance was also mentioned and certain amendments to the old age pension bill. Women's suffrage was not mentioned. Nevertheless, we were singularly lucky, the first three places in the ballot being secured by members of the Conciliation Committee. Mr. Philips, an Irish member, drew the first place, but as the Irish party had decided not to introduce any bills that session, he yielded to Sir George Kemp, who announced that he would use his place for the purpose of taking a second reading debate on the new Conciliation Bill. The old bill had been entitled: "A Bill to give the Vote to Women Occupiers," a title that made amendment difficult. The new bill bore the more flexible title, "A Bill to Confer the Parliamentary Franchise on Women," thus doing away with one of Mr. Lloyd-George's most plausible objections to it. The £10 occupation clause was omitted, doing away with another objection, that of the possibility of "faggot voting," that is, of a rich man conferring the vote on a family of daughters by the simple expedient of making them tenants of slices of his own property. The Conciliation Bill now read: "1. Every woman possessed of a household qualification within the meaning of the Representation of the People Act (1884) shall be entitled to be registered as a voter, and when registered to vote in the county or borough in which the qualifying premises are situated.

"2. For the purposes of this Act a woman shall not be disqualified by marriage for being registered as a voter, provided that a husband and wife shall not both be registered as voters in the same Parliamentary borough or county division."

This bill met with even warmer approval than the first one, because it was believed that it would win votes from those members who felt that the original measure had fallen short of being truly democratic. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister showed from the first that he intended to oppose it, as he had all previous suffrage measures. He announced that all Fridays up to Easter and also all time on Tuesdays and Wednesdays usually allowed for private members' bills were to be occupied with consideration of Government measures. Hardly a Liberal voice was raised against this arbitrary ruling. The Irish members indeed were delighted with it, since it gave the Home Rule Bill an advantage. The Labour members seemed complacent, and the rest of the coalition were indifferent. One back bench Liberal went so far as to rise and thank the Prime Minister for the courtesy with which the gagging process was accomplished. There was some show of fight made by the Opposition, but Conservative indignation was tempered by the reflection that the precedent established might be followed to advantage when their party came into power.

Sir George Kemp then announced that he would take May 5th for the second reading of the Conciliation Bill, and the supporters of the bill, according to their various convictions, set to work to further its interests. The conviction of the W. S. P. U. was that Mr. Asquith's Government would never allow the bill to pass until they were actually forced to do so, and we adopted our own methods to secure a definite pledge from the Government that they would give facilities to the bill.

In April of that year the census was to be taken, and we organised a census resistance on the part of women. According to our law the census of the entire kingdom must be taken every ten years on a designated day. Our plan was to reduce the value of the census for statistical purposes by refusing to make the required returns. Two ways of resistance presented themselves. The first and most important was direct resistance by occupiers who should refuse to fill in the census papers. This laid the register open to a fine of £5 or a month's imprisonment, and thus required the exercise of considerable courage. The second means of resistance was evasion—staying away from home during the entire time that the enumerators were taking the census. We made the announcement of this plan and instantly there ensued a splendid response from women and a chorus of horrified disapproval from the conservative public. The Times voiced this disapproval in a leading article, to which I replied, giving our reasons for the protest. "The Census," I wrote, "is a numbering of the people. Until women count as people for the purpose of representation in the councils of the nation as well as for purposes of taxation, we shall refuse to be numbered."

On the subject of laws made by men—without the assistance of women—for the protection of women and children, I have a very special feeling. From my experience as poor law guardian and as Registrar of Births and Deaths, I know how ridiculously, say rather how tragically, these laws fall short of protection. Take for instance the vaunted "Children's Charter" of 1906, the measure which spread Mr. Lloyd-George's fame throughout the world. A volume could be filled with the mistakes and the cruelties of that Act, the object of which is the preservation and improvement of child life. A distinguishing characteristic of the Act is that it puts most of the responsibility for neglect of children on the backs of the mothers, who, under the laws of England, have no rights as parents. Two or three especially striking cases of this kind came into notice about this time, and gave the census resistance an additional justification.

The case of Annie Woolmore was a very pitiful one. She was arrested and sentenced to Holloway for six weeks for neglecting her children. The evidence showed that the woman lived with her husband and children in a miserable hovel, which would have been almost impossible to keep clean even if there had been water in the house. As it was the poor soul, who was in ill health and weakened by deprivation, had to carry all the water she used across a great distance. The children as well as the house were very dirty, it was true, but the children were well nourished and kindly treated. The husband, a labourer, out of work much of the time, testified that his wife "starved herself to feed the kids." Yet she had violated the terms of the "Children's Charter" and she went to prison. I am glad to say that owing to the efforts of suffragists she was pardoned and provided with a better home.

Another case was that of Helen Conroy, who was charged with living in one wretched room, with her husband and seven children, the youngest a month old. According to the law the mother was forbidden to have this infant in bed with her overnight, yet part of the charge against her was that the child was found sleeping in a box of damp straw. Doubtless she would have preferred a cradle, or even a box of dry straw. But direst poverty made the cradle impossible and the conditions of the tenement kept the straw damp. Both parents in this instance were sent to prison for three months at hard labour. The magistrate casually remarked that the house in which these poor people lived had been condemned two years before, but some respectable property owner was still collecting rents from it.

Another poor mother, evicted from her home because she could not pay the rent, took her four children out into the open country, and when found was sleeping with them in a gravel pit. She was sent to prison for a month and the children went to the workhouse.

These sorry mothers, logical results of the subjection of women, are enough in themselves to justify almost any defiance of a Government who deny the women the right to work out their destinies in freedom. No pledge having been secured from the Prime Minister by April 1st, we carried out, and most successfully, our census resistance. Many thousands of women all over the country refused or evaded the returns. I returned my census paper with the words "No vote no census" written across it, and other women followed that example with similar messages. One woman filled in the blank with full information about her one man servant, and added that there were many women but no more persons in her household. In Birmingham sixteen women of wealth packed their houses with women resisters. They slept on the floors, on chairs and tables, and even in the baths. The head of a large college threw open the building to 300 women. Many women in other cities held all night parties for friends who wished to remain away from home. In some places unoccupied houses were rented for the night by resisters, who lay on the bare boards. Some groups of women hired gipsy vans and spent the night on the moors.

In London we gave a great concert at Queen's Hall on Census night. Many of us walked about Trafalgar Square until midnight and then repaired to Aldwich skating rink, where we amused ourselves until morning. Some skated while others looked on, and enjoyed the admirable musical and theatrical entertainment that helped to pass the hours. We had with us a number of the brightest stars in the theatrical world, and they were generous in their contributions. It being Sunday night, the chairman had to call on each of the artists for a "speech" instead of a song or other turn. An all-night restaurant near at hand did a big business, and on the whole the resisters had a very good time. The Scala Theatre was the scene of another all-night entertainment.

There was a good deal of curiosity to see what the Government would devise in the way of a punishment for the rebellious women, but the Government realised the impossibility of taking punitive action, and Mr. John Burns, who, as head of the Local Government Board, was responsible for the census, announced that they had decided to treat the affair with magnanimity. The number of evasions, he declared, was insignificant. But every one knew that this was the exact reverse of the facts.

IN THIS MANNER THOUSANDS OF WOMEN THROUGHOUT THE KINGDOM SLEPT IN
UNOCCUPIED HOUSES OVER CENSUS NIGHT

The Conciliation Bill was debated on May 5th and passed its second reading by the enormous majority of 137. And now the public and a section of the press united in a strong demand that the Government yield to the undoubted will of the House and grant facilities to the bill. The Conciliation Committee sent a deputation of members to the Prime Minister to remind him of his pre-election promise that the House of Commons should have an opportunity of dealing with the whole question of woman suffrage, but they succeeded only in getting his assurance that he had the matter under consideration. Late in the month the announcement was made in the House that the Government would not grant facilities during that session, but, since the new bill fulfilled the conditions named by the Prime Minister, and was now capable of amendment, the Government recognised it to be their duty to grant facilities in some session of the present Parliament. They would be prepared next session, when the bill had been again read for the second time, either as a result of obtaining a good place in the ballot, or (if that did not happen) by a grant of a Government day for the purpose, to give a week, which they understood to be the time suggested as reasonable by the promoters for its further stages.

This pledge was made in order to deter the W. S. P. U. from making a militant demonstration in connection with the coronation of the King.

Keir Hardie asked if the Government would, by means of a closure or otherwise, make certain that the bill would go through in the week, and the Prime Minister replied, "No, I cannot give an assurance of that kind. After all, it is a problem of the very greatest magnitude."

This reply seemed to make the Government's pledge practically worthless. The Conciliation Committee also realised the possibilities of the bill being talked out, and Lord Lytton wrote to Mr. Asquith and asked him for assurances that the facilities offered were intended not for academic discussion but for effective opportunity for carrying the bill. He also asked that the week offered should not be construed rigidly but that, providing the committee stage were got through in the time, additional days for the report and third reading stages might be forthcoming. Reasonable opportunity for making use of the closure was also asked. To Lord Lytton's letter the Prime Minister replied as follows:

My dear Lytton—In reply to your letter on the subject of the Women's Enfranchisement Bill, I would refer you to some observations recently made in a speech at the National Liberal Club by Sir Edward Grey, which accurately expresses the intention of the Government.

It follows (to answer your specific inquiries), that the "week" offered will be interpreted with reasonable elasticity, that the Government will interpose no reasonable obstacle to the proper use of the closure, and that if (as you suggest) the bill gets through committee in the time proposed, the extra days required for report and third reading will not be refused.

The Government, though divided in opinion on the merits of the bill, are unanimous in their determination to give effect, not only in the letter but in the spirit, to the promise in regard to facilities which I made on their behalf before the last general election.

Yours etc.,

H. H. Asquith.

Sceptical up to this point, the W. S. P. U. was now convinced that the Government were sincere in their promise to give the bill full facilities in the following year. We held a joyful mass meeting in Queen's Hall and I again declared that warfare against the Government was at an end. Our new policy was the inauguration of a great holiday campaign, with the object of making victory in 1912 absolutely certain. Electors must be aroused, members of Parliament held to their allegiance. Women must be organised in order that questions that vitally affect the social welfare of the country might be placed before them. I chose Scotland and Wales as the scenes of my holiday labours.

I may say that our confidence was fully shared by the public at large. The belief in Mr. Asquith's pledge was accurately reflected in a leader published in The Nation, which said: "From the moment the Prime Minister signed the frank and ungrudging letter to Lord Lytton which appeared in last Saturday's newspapers, women became, in all but the legal formality, voters and citizens. For at least two years, if not for longer, nothing has been lacking save a full and fair opportunity for the House of Commons to translate its convictions into the precise language of a statute. That opportunity has been promised for next session and promised in terms and under conditions which ensure success."

The only thing, as we thought, that we had to fear were wrecking amendments to the bill, and in the new by-election policy which we adopted we worked against all candidates of every party who would refuse to promise, not only to support the Conciliation Committee to carry the bill, but also to vote against any amendment the committee thought dangerous. We believed that we had covered every possibility of disaster. But we had something yet to learn of the treachery of the Asquith Ministry and their capacity for cold-blooded lying.

Mr. Lloyd-George from the first was an open enemy of the bill, but since we had no doubt of the sincerity of the Prime Minister, we could only conclude that Mr. Lloyd-George had detached himself from the main body of the Government and had become the self-constituted leader of the opposition. In an address to a large Liberal group Mr. Lloyd-George advised that Liberal members be asked to ballot for a place for a "democratic measure," in order that such a measure might claim the Prime Minister's pledge for facilities next session. In one or two other speeches he made vague allusions to the possibilities of introducing another suffrage bill. His own idea was to amend the bill to give a vote to wives of all electors—making married women voters in virtue of their husband's qualification. The inevitable effect of such an amendment would be to wreck the bill, since it would have enfranchised about 6,000,000 women in addition to the million and a half who would benefit by the original terms of the bill. Such a wholesale addition to the electorate was never known in England; the number enfranchised by the Reform Bill of 1832 being hardly more than half a million. The Reform Bill of 1867 admitted a million new voters, and that of 1884 perhaps two millions. The absurdity of Mr. Lloyd-George's proposition was such that we did not regard it seriously. We did not allow his opposition to give us serious alarm until a day in August when a Welsh member, Mr. Leif Jones, asked the Prime Minister from the floor of the House, whether he was aware that his promise for facilities for the Conciliation Bill in the next session was being claimed exclusively for that bill, and asked further for a statement that the promised facilities would be equally granted to any other suffrage bill that might secure a second reading and was capable of amendment. Mr. Lloyd-George, speaking for the Government, replied that they could not undertake to give facilities to more than one bill on the same subject, but that any bill which, satisfying these tests, secured a second reading, would be treated by them as falling within their engagements.

Astounded at this plain evasion of a sacred promise, Lord Lytton again wrote to the Prime Minister, reviewing the entire matter, and asking for another statement of the Government's intentions. The following is the text of Mr. Asquith's reply:

My dear Lytton—I have no hesitation in saying that the promises made by, and on behalf of the Government, in regard to giving facilities to the Conciliation Bill, will be strictly adhered to, both in letter and in spirit.

Yours sincerely,

H. H. Asquith.

August 23, 1911.

Again we were reassured, and our confidence in the Premier's pledge remained unshaken throughout the campaign, although Mr. Lloyd-George continued to throw out hints that the promises of facilities for the bill were altogether illusory. We could not believe him, and when, two months later, I was asked in America: "When will English women vote?" I replied with perfect conviction, "Next year."

This was in Louisville, Kentucky, where I attended the 1911 Annual Convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association.

I remember this third visit to the United States with especial pleasure. I was the guest in New York of Dr. and Mrs. John Winters Brannan, and through the courtesy of Dr. Brannan, who is at the head of all the city hospitals, I saw something of the penal system and the institutional life of America. We visited the workhouse and the penitentiary on Blackwell's Island, and although I am told that these places are not regarded as model institutions, I can assure my readers that they are infinitely superior to the English prisons where women are punished for trying to win their political freedom. In the American prisons, much as they lacked in some essentials, I saw no solitary confinement, no rule of silence, no deadly air of officialdom. The food was good and varied, and above all there was an air of kindness and good feeling between the officials and the prisoners that is almost wholly lacking in England.

But, after all, in the United States as in other countries, the problem of the relations between unfranchised women and the State remains unsolved and unsatisfactory. One night my friends took me to that sombre and terrible institution, the Night Court for Women. We sat on the bench with the magistrate, and he very courteously explained everything to us. The whole business was heart-breaking. All the women, with one exception—an old drunkard—were charged with solicitation. Most of them were of high type by nature. It all seemed so hopeless, and it was clear that they were victims of an evil system. Their conviction was a foregone conclusion.

The magistrate said that in most cases the reason for their coming there was economic. One case of a little cigar maker, who said very simply that she only went on the streets when out of work, and that when in work she earned $8 a week, was very tragic and touching. I could not keep the Night Court out of my speeches after that. The whole dreadful injustice of women's lives seemed mirrored in that place.

I went as far west as the Pacific Coast on this visit, spending Christmas day in Seattle, and for the first time seeing a community where women and men existed on terms of exact equality. It was a delightful experience. As I wrote home to our members, the men of the western States seemed to my eyes eager, earnest, rough men, building a great community in a great hurry, but never have I seen greater respect, courtesy and chivalry shown to women than in that one Suffrage State it has been my privilege to visit.

I am getting a little ahead of my story, however. It was in November, when I was in the city of Minneapolis, that a crushing blow descended on the English suffragists. I learned of this through cabled despatches in the newspapers and from private cables, and was so staggered that I could scarcely command myself sufficiently to fill my immediate engagements. This was the news, that the Government had broken their plighted word and had deliberately destroyed the Conciliation Bill. My first wild thought, on hearing of this act of treachery, was to cancel all engagements and return to England, but my final decision to remain afterwards proved the right one, because the women at home, without a moment's loss of time, struck the answering blow, guided by that insight which has been characteristic of every act of the members of our Union. I did not return to England until January 11, 1912, and by that time great deeds had been done. Our movement had entered upon a new and more vigorous stage of militancy.

[2] Lady Constance Lytton's story has been thrillingly told in her book "Prisons and Prisoners," Heinemann.